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Oct 2026

CAPES Quarterly Newsletter

We welcome Sharina Person as the new Co-Director of CAPES!

Sharina Person, PhD, is a professor and Dr. Marcellette G. Williams Senior Scholar at UMass Chan Medical School, where she serves as vice chair of the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences. A PhD-trained biostatistician with over 25 years of experience, she is also associate director of the Quantitative Methods Core, offering consultative services in study design, statistical analysis, and project coordination. Previously, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, she directed the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute-funded CARDIA Coordinating Center and methodology units for two research centers.

Dr. Person has been serving as Co-Lead of both the Methods Core and the Design, Data, and Analysis Unit. We're thrilled to have her leadership and expertise as Co-Director of CAPES, alongside Dr. Boudreaux.

Artificial Intelligence Innovations in Suicide Prevention Webinar: Recordings Available

Thank you to Feifan Liu, PhD, FAMIA; Danielle Mowery, PhD, MS, FAMIA, FACMI; and Chris Kennedy, PhD, MPA, for your excellent presentations focused on innovations in suicide prevention using artificial intelligence and machine learning.

We are excited about the collaboration and synergy across the other NIMH-funded P50 practice-based suicide prevention centers, and opportunities for working together in the future. These three talks highlighted innovative applications of AI, current challenges, and opportunities to improve suicide prevention efforts with responsible and impactful use of AI.

Recordings of the event, moderated by our CAPES Methods Core Co-Lead and Machine Learning Unit lead, Emmanuel Agu, PhD, are now available here.

CAPES Sponsored Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Grand Rounds


Lauren Weinstock, PhD, presented "Moving Beyond the Clinic: Suicide Prevention Across the Incarceration-Reentry Continuum." Dr. Weinstock is a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at The Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University, MPI of the National Center for Health & Criminal Legal Systems Integration for Suicide Prevention, director of training of the Brown Clinical Psychology Internship Training Consortium, and co-director of the Brown T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship in Suicide Research at Butler Hospital in Providence, RI.

We thank Dr. Weinstock for highlighting that many of the challenges faced by patients and healthcare systems after an emergency department visit — including difficulties accessing high-quality suicide care and risk for suicidal behaviors — are also experienced by individuals who enter the community after incarceration.

The CAPES team raised funds and awareness at the 2026 AFSP Out of the Darkness Walk to support research, advocacy, and educational programs in schools, workplaces, and communities across Massachusetts. This year we raised $2,680 for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, higher than any previous year. You can donate to support the cause on our team page through December 2026.

Thank you to CAPES Lived Experience Advisory Board members Jenni Glynn and T'Leah McQuade, CAPES Scholar Nicholas Josselyn, UMass Chan faculty Kale Edmiston, PhD, Operations Unit Lead Mhd Rahmoun, MD, and DanCE Unit Lead Lourah Kelly, PhD, and our friends and family members for braving the wind, cold, and rain to walk together! Shown above is Dr. Kelly along with the other community members who were recognized during the Opening Honor Bead Ceremony. We all wear honor beads; each color shows our personal connection to suicide prevention. For more information, see the AFSP Honor Beads page.

CAPES also wants to thank Michele Lee and the Massachusetts chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention for hosting a special presentation of Talk Saves Lives: An Introduction to Suicide Prevention virtually for the UMass Chan student and trainee community. Thank you to the attendees who came to learn about warning signs, risk factors, and prevention strategies, as well as to Dr. Edwin Boudreaux, CAPES Co-Director, who shared information about CAPES resources for researchers and community members, as well as information about CAPES's annual fundraising walk team for AFSP.

Our colleagues at the Center for Suicide Research and Prevention (CSPR) hosted their annual summit on Sept. 17, 2026, 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. EDT, on Zoom.

Dr. Edwin Boudreaux, Co-Director of CAPES, was a panelist and presented research on implementation science for suicide prevention.

The first panel focused on lethal means prevention, by Charles Branas, PhD (Columbia University), Matthew Miller, MID, MPH, ScD (Northeastern University), and Chana Sacks, MD, MPH (Mass General Hospital). The second panel focused on implementation science for suicide prevention, by Brian Ahmedani, PhD (Henry Ford Health System), CAPES Co-Director Edwin Boudreaux, PhD (UMass Chan Medical School), and Emily Haroz, PhD, MA, MHS (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health). The third presentation focused on suicide in older adults, by Yeates Conwell, MD (University of Rochester Medical Center) and Kimberly Van Orden, PhD (University of Rochester Medical Center). The keynote speaker was Rachel Zimmerman, MS (Author and Journalist at The Washington Post).

Ben Gerber, MD, MPH, Co-Lead of the CAPES Person-centered Design Unit, professor in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences, and his wife, Rebecca Gerber, an electronic resources librarian in the Lamar Soutter Library, have arrived in South Korea.

Dr. Gerber is spending the semester at Hallym University as a visiting professor, exploring opportunities to expand on the partnership between Hallym and UMass Chan, including remote monitoring and chronic disease management and serving as an advisor in the Medical Artificial Intelligence Talent Development Program, an exchange program between UMass Chan Medical School and Hallym University.

Please remember that all CAPES manuscripts and presentations must include the following acknowledgment statement:

“This work was supported, all or in part, by the National Institute of Mental Health through the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School’s Center for Accelerating Practices to End Suicide (CAPES) [P50MH129701]. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Mental Health or the National Institutes of Health.”

Thank you for taking the time to review our 14^th quarterly newsletter! Stay tuned for more Center-wide announcements and opportunities!

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